How to Become a Successful Amazon Affiliate

I love the Amazon Associates program, though I will be the first to admit it took me a long time to make the most of it. Today, I couldn’t remember the last month I didn’t get a deposit from Amazon. And it isn’t unusual for me to be in the 7% commission bracket (111+ sales). Though Amazon is not my sole avenue for affiliate income, it is definitely worth the time. Here are a few of my favorite tips for making money with Amazon’s affiliate program.

Amazon Associates Program Pros

Amazon offers several ways to receive your commissions. Payments are made approximately 60 days from the end of the month that you hit your threshold. (Ex. If you make payout in January, you will receive your payment towards the end of March.)

Amazon Gift Card/Certificate – $10 minimum

Direct Deposit – $10 minimum

Check – $100 minimum

In addition to the multiple payment methods and low threshold for receiving payment, there are a few other things I really like about the program:

Easy to implement, even for beginner affiliate marketers

Huge variety of products to promote

Well-known and trusted merchant

You can link to individual products easily rather than having only a generic creative available

Potential Cons

The cookie duration is short – 24 hours – UNLESS the person adds an item to their cart. Then your cookie is locked in for 89 days.

Some complain that the commission rate is low. However, I find it comparable to other big merchants for which I am an affiliate.

The Amazon Associates Program is prohibited in some states.

Tips for Becoming a Successful Amazon Affiliate

Don’t Grasp at Straws – First things first – be honest with what your audience expects, whether your site is new or old. Choose products to promote based on your content. Is there a book that further covers the topic you are discussing? Do they need special tools or ingredients to make that recipe or craft?

Product Selection – Don’t start posting about every product relevant to your niche. You will lose your reader’s trust if they hop over to see everyone else is giving the item 2 or 3 stars. Feature products you love, bestsellers and hot new releases. If there is a flaw, point it out and let your reader know whether it’s a deal-breaker or a minor inconvenience.

Dig down – Especially at this time of year, everyone is posting Top 10 lists. Rather than going generic (Top 10 Laptops), dig down deeper to catch their attention (Top 10 Budget Laptops for Broke Students).

Promote via Post – The conversion rate for banner ads is far lower than text links – Amazon or not. You are going to make your money pre-selling products. That may be reviews, product comparisons, gift guides or other types of recommendations. Include at least two links and a product image. If you need to fill those sidebar widgets, try the Carousel Widget. It is far more interactive and engaging.

Mix Inexpensive with High End – Many want-to-be-successful Amazon Associates go for broke straight out of the gate. Your reader pool for 3 Ct. diamond engagement rings is far smaller than those looking for wedding invitations and the former is going to be a much harder sell. Mix up your price points to get moving through the performance ranks. And you will likely find it is rare that you ever make a single-item sale on things priced under $35. That is Amazon’s new “free shipping” threshold. Even if your recommended product is $7 your reader is likely going to keep adding to their cart until they hit the free shipping mark.

Let Amazon Close the Sale – You do not need to be high pressure, nor should you be. Inform your reader and let Amazon close the sale. Amazon will also recommend complimentary products, push that free shipping and show alternatives. Let them do the heavy lifting.

Get Some Cool Tools – There are some really neat things out there to help save you time and boost your conversion rates. I have been using EasyAzon for over three years. This nifty WordPress plugin will help you create text and image links without leaving your blog. You can also add information blocks, international links and hover pop outs. Their latest version even includes Add to Cart buttons that will set those 90-day cookies we love.

How to Set Up Amazon Associate Tracking IDs

If you don’t set up multiple Amazon Associate tracking IDs and are promoting with multiple sites however, it can become difficult to know what sales came from where and what marketing tactics are working.

Adding Amazon Associates IDs for tracking purposes is rather painless. With a few quick clicks, you are able to analyze your marketing efforts with ease.

Setting Up Additional Amazon Associate Tracking IDs

Once logged in, you will see your email address and Amazon-assigned Tracking ID at the top of the screen. Click the down arrow by your email address and choose Manage Your Tracking IDs. This is where you will add more IDs for tracking purposes.

On the next screen simply click Add Tracking ID and start searching for availability. You may choose to add IDs that relate to the website or marketing campaign (Ex. Facebook, Resource page, a second blog, etc.). It will always have that -20 behind it.

Once you have chosen your new Tracking IDs, you can view their stats separately or as combined reports. Don’t worry. You are not creating any new accounts here. All of your earnings are still going into one place. This is strictly done for stats.

When you go to create links to Amazon products going forward, you will have a drop-down box listing your tracking IDs. Choose the applicable ID, and you are good to go.

If you are an active Amazon Associate with multiple sites, you likely have no problems seeing the value here. Many of our Amazon earnings come from products we didn’t promote. Sometimes they are not in any way to connected to what we promoted. Where did that lawn mower sale come from? I haven’t promoted any home & garden items. It is hard to connect the dots as to where the sale came from in those situations. This will make that connection a little easier.

The Amazon Associates program is a natural fit for many bloggers and is very beginner-friendly. If you are looking to make money with affiliate marketing, I highly recommend adding it into your monetization mix.

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Reader Interactions

Comments

One of the ways I’ve used Amazon successfully, especially during the holiday months, is to promote low-cost items early in the month (like magazine subscriptions) in order to bump myself up to the higher percentage brackets.

I love you for posting this! I’m a newbie to wordpress and have signed up for amazon affiliate and amazon web services (not even sure what the difference is) and have attempted to put amazon ads up and I wasn’t successful 🙁 I hope your article can help me get started! I love people like you that post helpful stuff!!

Angie,
Thank you for all of the advice. I have been burning through all of your blog advice pages that you have posted. I have recently started my blog http://familyfunof5.com which has activities and inspiration for families. I learn something new every day. It is definitely a chore to figure out how to develop my site aesthetically pleasing, work on codes, create links properly, and determine how to incorporate money making ads. I am currently only posting one blog a week while I’m delving into the how-to’s of blogging. I have found all of your posts to be very informative and a helpful tool during my newbie stage. Thanks again for all of the help and encouragement that you give! Please stop by and take a look at my Blog and let me know what you think. I would appreciate any feed back.
Sincerely,
Kristinhttp://familyfunof5.com

Angie your advice as always the best. Recently I was approved for Amazon associates for my blog. I was so proud that they approved it. Your blog post on how to become a successful Amazon affiliate covered almost all topic for this program. I would love to learn your opinion on AStore. Personally I think it is very cool and amazing product, and I’m planning to add to my site as a library of my favorite books. Please let me know your opinion on this.
thank you Luba

AStore can be a nice compliment to an existing site, but they usually don’t promote well on their own. I prefer a dedicated page where you can share why you personally recommend each item as opposed to something with general store descriptions. Many bloggers title these pages “Resources” or “Recommended Tools.”